The Countess von Rudolstadt

by George Sand

  Chapter VII

  “I was born somewhere or other in Spain, and I don’t know exactly when, but I must be twenty-three or twenty-four. I don’t know my father’s name, and as for that of my mother’s father, I’m quite sure that she had the same uncertainty about her own parents. In Venice she was known as the Zingara, and I the Zingarella. My mother gave me Maria del Consuelo as my patron saint, in other words, Our Lady of Consolation. My early years were rambling and wretched, my mother and I traveling on foot all over the world and living off our songs. I have a vague memory about our receiving hospitality at a castle in the Bohemian forest where a handsome adolescent named Albert, the lord’s son, showered me with care and affection and gave my mother a guitar. The castle was the Castle of the Giants, of which I would one day refuse to be the lady. The young lord was Count Albert von Rudolstadt, whose wife I was to become.

  “At the age of ten I started singing in the streets. One day when I was doing my little song on the Piazza San Marco in Venice in front of a café, Professor Porpora, who happened to be there, was struck by the accuracy of my voice and the natural method that my mother had passed on to me. He called me over, asked me questions, followed me back to my hovel, gave my mother some help, and promised her that he’d get me into the scuola dei mendicanti, one of those free music schools you find all over Italy. All the eminent singers, men and women, come out of these schools because they’re run by the best music teachers. There I made rapid progress, and Professor Porpora grew fond of me. Before long that made me the butt of my fellow students’ jealousy and mean tricks. Their unfair resentment and contempt for my rags gave me early on the habits of patience, reserve, and resignation.

  “I don’t remember when I first saw him, but it is certain that by the age of seven or eight I already loved a young man, or rather a boy, an abandoned orphan. Like me, he studied music thanks to patronage and charity; like me, he lived on the streets. Our friendship or love—for it was the same thing—was a chaste, delightful sentiment. The hours that weren’t devoted to study we spent together, innocently wandering around. My mother, after having vainly opposed our feelings, sanctioned them by the promise she made us contract on her deathbed; namely, we would get married as soon as our work put us in a position to raise a family.

  “By the time I was eighteen or nineteen my singing was fairly advanced. Count Zustiniani, a Venetian nobleman and the owner of the Teatro San Samuele, heard me singing in church and hired me as the female lead to replace Corilla, a lovely, robust virtuoso whose lover he had been and who was unfaithful to him. This same Zustiniani was also the patron of my fiancé, Anzoleto, who was hired with me to sing the male leads. Our débuts were heralded by the most brilliant auspices. He had a magnificent voice, an extraordinary natural facility, a seductive appearance. All the beautiful ladies took him under their wing. But he was lazy. His professor hadn’t been as clever and zealous as mine. His success was less brilliant. At first he was sad, then spiteful, and finally jealous, and that’s how I lost his love.”

  “Can that be,” asked Princess Amalia, “for such a reason? Was he really so vile?”

  “Alas! No, Madame, but he was vain and artistic. He managed to gain the patronage of Corilla, the disgraced and furious diva, who stole his heart away from me and soon had him wound and rip apart my own. One evening, Professor Porpora, who had always opposed our feelings since he maintains that no woman can become a great artist unless her heart remains a stranger to all passion and commitment, made me discover Anzoleto’s betrayal. The next evening Count Zustiniani declared his love for me. I was far from expecting this and felt deeply offended. Anzoleto pretended to be jealous, to believe that I had been defiled. . . . He wanted to break things off with me. I fled into the night and went to see my professor, a man of quick inspiration who had got me used to quick execution. He gave me some letters, a small sum of money, and a travel itinerary. Then he put me in a gondola, accompanied me to the mainland, and at dawn I was off to Bohemia all by myself.”

  “Bohemia?” asked Mme von Kleist, wide-eyed with amazement at Porporina’s courage and virtue.

  “Yes, Madame. In our lingo of itinerant artists we often talk about roaming through Bohemia, which means launching into a perilous life of poverty, toil, and often shame, the life of the Zingari, whom the French also call Bohemians. As for me, I wasn’t heading for that symbolic Bohemia to which I like so many others seemed destined by my fate, but toward the troubled, chivalrous land of the Czechs, the homeland of Hus and Zizka, the Bohemian Forest, and finally the Castle of the Giants where I was generously welcomed by the Rudolstadt family.”

  “But why were you going to them?” asked the princess, who was listening attentively. “Did they remember seeing you as a child?”

  “Not in the least. I had forgotten about it myself. It was only much later and by accident, that Count Albert remembered, then helped me remember that little adventure; but in Germany, Professor Porpora had become a close acquaintance of the venerable Christian von Rudolstadt, the head of the family. Young Baroness Amalia, his niece, was asking for a governess, meaning a young lady-companion who would pretend to teach her music and relieve her boredom amid the austere, dreary life that one led at Riesenburg.1 Her good, noble family welcomed me like a friend, almost a relative. Despite my good intentions, I didn’t teach my pretty, capricious student a single thing, and. . . .”

  “And Count Albert fell in love with you, as was bound to happen?”

  “Alas! Madame, I can’t speak lightly of such a solemn, painful thing. Count Albert, whom people took for a madman, who conjoined a sublime soul and an inspired spirit with such strange oddities and an altogether inexplicable disorder of the imagination. . . .”

  “I’ve already heard that from Supperville, who didn’t believe it nor try to explain it to me either. People said the young man had supernatural powers, the gift of prophecy, second sight, the ability to make himself invisible. . . . His family told the most extraordinary tales about him. . . . But all this stuff is impossible, and I hope you don’t lend it any credence.”

  “Spare me, Madame, the pain and perplexity of taking a position on matters that go beyond my ken. I saw inconceivable things, and at certain moments Count Albert seemed to me superhuman. At other moments I only saw in him a poor wretch deprived of the light of reason by the very excess of his virtue. Yet at no time did I ever see him as an ordinary human. Delirious or calm, inspired or dejected, he was always the best, the fairest, either the most sagely enlightened or the most poetically fanatic of men. In a word, I cannot think of him or say his name without a shudder of respect, keen emotion, and a sort of horror, for I am the involuntary though not altogether innocent cause of his death.”

  “Now, now, dear Countess, dry your lovely eyes, take courage, and tell me more. I’m listening to you without irony or profane levity, I swear.”

  “In the beginning it was impossible for me to guess that he loved me. He never spoke to me, he didn’t even seem to see me. I think he first took notice that I was at the castle when he heard me singing. I have to tell you that he was a fine musician and played the violin as no one in the world suspects it can be played. Yet I believe that I’m the only one at Riesenburg who ever heard him, for his family never knew about that incomparable talent of his. So his love for me was born of a burst of enthusiasm and musical affinity. His cousin, Baroness Amalia, his fiancée of two years whom he didn’t love, came to resent me, even though she didn’t love him either. She let me know it in ways that were frank more so than mean; for along with her failings, she had a certain magnanimity. She was weary of Albert’s coldness, the dreary castle, and one fine morning she left, kidnapping, as it were, her father, Baron Frederick, who was Count Christian’s brother. Baron Frederick was an excellent man with a narrow, lazy mind and a simple heart, a slave to his daughter and a great fan of hunting.”

  “You haven’t said a word about Count Albert’s invisibility, when he would disappear for fifteen or twenty
days at a time, then suddenly reappear, believing or pretending to believe that he hadn’t left the house, unwilling or unable to say what he had been doing while everyone had been searching all over for him.”

  “Since Monsieur Supperville has already told you about this apparently supernatural phenomenon, I’ll explain it to you. I’m the only one who can, for this was always a secret between Albert and me. Near the Castle of the Giants is a mountain called Schreckenstein,2 and hidden away inside are a cave and several mysterious chambers, an ancient subterranean construction going back to the time of the Hussites. Albert, all the while reading a series of very daring philosophical opinions and with a religious enthusiasm carried to the point of mysticism, had remained in his heart a Hussite or, more exactly, a Taborite. As a descendant of King George Podiebrad on his mother’s side, he had retained and developed the patriotic independence and evangelical equality with which the sermons of John Hus and the victories of Jan Zizka had, as it were, inoculated the Bohemians. . . .”

  “How she talks about history and philosophy!” exclaimed the princess, casting an eye at Mme von Kleist. “Who would ever have tried to tell me that a theater girl would understand these things as I do, having spent my life poring over them in books? Wasn’t I telling you, von Kleist, that among these beings that court opinion relegates to the lowest ranks of society there were minds equal if not superior to those formed in the highest ranks with such care and at such expense!”

  “Alas, Madame!” continued Porporina, “I am very ignorant, and I hadn’t read a thing before I arrived at Riesenburg. But there I heard so much talk about these matters, and I was forced to think so much in order to understand what was happening in Albert’s mind that I wound up acquiring some notion of them.”

  “Yes, but you’ve gone mystical and a bit mad yourself, my child! Go ahead and admire the military campaigns of Jan Zizka and the republican spirit of Bohemia. On that score, my ideas may be just as democratic as yours, for love has revealed to me, too, a truth that contradicts what my pedants had taught me about peoples’ rights and individual merit. Yet I don’t share your admiration for Taborite fanaticism and their mania for Christian equality. It’s absurd, unrealizable, and it leads to ferocious excesses. It’s fine with me if they overthrow kings, and . . . I might give them a hand if necessary! Fine too if they set up republics like those in Sparta, Athens, Rome, or old Venice! I can accept that. But I don’t like your bloodthirsty, filthy Taborites any better than the Waldensians of blazing memory, the odious Anabaptists of Munster and the Picards of ancient Germany.”

  “I heard Count Albert say that these are not all exactly the same thing,” Consuelo modestly replied. “But I wouldn’t dare discuss with Your Highness subjects that she has studied. Here in Berlin you’ve got historians and scholars who have dealt with these weighty matters, and you’re a better judge than I of their wisdom and fairness. Yet, even with the good fortune of having a whole academy to teach me things, I doubt that my sympathies would change. But I’ll go on with my tale.”

  “Yes, I interrupted you with pedantries, and I ask your forgiveness. Count Albert, who was infatuated with his forefathers’ exploits (this is quite conceivable and quite excusable), who was also enamored of you, which is more natural and even more legitimate, wouldn’t accept that you were not deemed his equal before God and man? He was quite right, but that was no reason to desert his father’s house and leave his whole family in distress.”

  “That’s the point I wanted to make,” replied Consuelo. “For a long time he had been going off to the Hussite cave at Schreckenstein to dream and meditate, and he liked these subterranean dwellings all the more because only he and a poor, crazy peasant who followed him on his walks knew about them. He got into the habit of retreating there every time a domestic sorrow or violent emotion made him lose control of himself. He could feel his spells coming on, and to hide his delirium from his dismayed relatives, he would make his way to Schreckenstein through an underground passage that he had discovered, the entrance being a cistern in a flower-bed near his rooms. Once in his cave, he would forget the hours, the days, the weeks. Looked after by Zdenko, this peasant who was a poet and visionary, whose fanaticism was somewhat like his, Albert wouldn’t dream of seeing the light of day again and returning home until the spell began to subside; and unfortunately his spells were growing each time longer and more intense. Finally, he was once gone so long that they thought he was dead, and I undertook to find his retreat. I succeeded but not without considerable trouble and danger. One night I had seen Zdenko stealthily creeping out of that cistern in the garden, and that’s where I started down. Not knowing my way through these unfathomable depths, I nearly lost my life. At last I found Albert, managed to dissipate the dismal torpor in which he was immersed, brought him back to his relatives, and made him promise never to go back to that fateful cave without me. He gave in, but predicted that this would be a death sentence for him. That prediction was only too true.”

  “But how? On the contrary, you were bringing him back to life.”

  “No, Madame, not unless I managed to love him and never to be a cause of pain for him.”

  “What! You didn’t love him? You went down into a hole, you risked your life going down into the bowels of the earth. . . .”

  “Where crazy Zdenko, not understanding my intentions and eager to protect his master like a faithful, stupid dog, nearly killed me. A torrent nearly swallowed me up. Albert didn’t recognize me at first and nearly made me share his madness, for fear and strong emotion make hallucinations contagious. . . . Finally, he lapsed into another spell of delirium while leading me back into the caves and came close to shutting me in and abandoning me there. . . . And to all that I exposed myself without loving Albert.”

  “So you had made a vow to Maria del Consuelo to save him?”

  “Something like that, indeed,” said Consuelo with a sad smile. “An act of tender pity for his family, of deep affection for him, perhaps romantic attraction, certainly sincere friendship, but not love, at least nothing like that blind, drunken, sweet love I had felt for that thankless Anzoleto, which I think wore my heart out prematurely! . . . What can I say, Madame? After that terrifying expedition I was delirious and at death’s door. Albert, who is as great a doctor as he is a musician, saved me. My slow convalescence and his assiduous care put us on a close footing, like a sister and brother. He completely returned to his senses. His father gave me his blessing and cherished me like a daughter. His hunchbacked old aunt, Canoness Wenceslawa, an angel of tenderness and a patrician brimming with prejudices, would even have resigned herself to accepting me. Albert beseeched me to love him. Count Christian went so far as to plead his son’s case. I was touched as well as frightened. I loved Albert as one loves virtue, truth, and ideal beauty; yet I was still afraid of him and abhorred the thought of becoming a countess, of contracting a marriage that would stir up the local gentry against him and his family, that would prompt accusations of sordid designs and vile intrigue against me. And then, must I confess it? This may be my only crime! . . . I missed my career, my freedom, my old teacher, my life as an artist, and that thrilling arena of the theater where I had momentarily appeared, blazing forth and disappearing like a meteor; that ardent stage where my love had been shattered, my grief consummated, that I thought I could always curse and scorn, yet where every night in my dreams people were either clapping or hooting me down. . . .

  “This must seem to you strange and contemptible. Yet, when one has been reared for the theater, when one has worked her whole life long to join these battles and take these victories, when the first contests have been won, the thought of never going back is as frightening as would be to you, Madame and dear Amalia, the idea of not being a princess any longer except on stage, as I am now twice a week. . . .”

  “Wrong, you’re spouting nonsense, dear friend! If I could turn from a princess into an artist, I’d marry Trenck and be happy! You didn’t want to turn from an artist into a pr
incess to marry Rudolstadt. It’s clear you didn’t love him! But that’s not your fault. . . . Love is not subject to command.”

  “Madame, that’s an aphorism I’d very much like to be able to believe; it would put my conscience at rest. But I’ve spent my life trying to resolve this problem, and I’m not there yet.”

  “Let’s see,” said the princess. “This is a solemn matter, and as an abbess, I have to try and adjudicate cases of conscience. You doubt that we’re free to love or not to love? So you think that love is a matter of choice and reason?”

  “That’s how it ought to be. A noble heart should be ruled not by what the world calls reason, which is nothing but folly and lies, but by that noble discernment that is merely the love of beauty and truth. You’re proof of that, Madame, and I’m condemned by your example. Born to occupy a throne, you’ve sacrificed false grandeur to true passion, to the possession of a heart worthy of your own. I was born to be a queen, too (on stage), but I lacked the courage and generosity to make a joyful sacrifice of all that glittering, deceptive glory for the sake of the serene life and sublime affection being offered me. I was ready to do so out of a sense of devotion, but not without sorrow and dread; and Albert, who saw how anxious I was, didn’t want me to agree to marry him as a sacrifice. He was asking me for enthusiasm, shared joys, a heart free of all regret. It wouldn’t have been right to try and deceive him. Besides, is it possible to deceive anyone about such things? So I requested more time, which was granted me. I promised to do what I could to love him as he loved me. I was sincere, but it was terrifying to feel that I wanted my conscience not to force me into making this formidable commitment.”

  “What a strange girl you are! You still loved the other one, I’d wager!”

  “Oh, my God! I truly believed that I didn’t, but one morning while waiting for Albert on the mountain to take a walk with him, I hear a voice down in the ravine; I recognize a piece that I had once studied with Anzoleto; above all I recognize that penetrating voice I had loved so dearly, and that Venetian accent so sweet to my memory; I lean over and see a man on horseback. It was he, Madame, Anzoleto!”